Are they just words?

Words like crybaby, flake, low life, low IQ, clown, dummy, phony, dopey, weird, slob and so many more, could all be accusations that are brought to me by 3rd graders on a daily basis. The way that I as a 3rd grade teacher handle this, is to bring student forward and have a chat about only using nice words to our friends at school. Usually at this point in the year, we have a whole class chat about how we need to treat our classmates with respect and that name calling is not the way to get what you want. We talk about how in fact, it make your classmates not want to be your friend, because who wants to be friends with a bully? And no, these words were not used by my 3rd graders, but were used by some top political officials.

I am at a cross point that I wonder if this seeming correct advice that I give my students is complete crap? Am I wrong, do adults get ahead in life by slinging insults to make other feel less then they should and this get what they want?  Do men and woman in board rooms scream "clown" across the room and miraculously everyone is willing to sign a million dollar deal?  At Best Buy, does a customer call my husband a "beaner" and all of  a sudden Mr. Hernandez gives them that television at the discount that they asked for? At United Airlines, does my mom give a customer that had problem with their flight a flying voucher because they call her a cunt?  Is that what I need to teach my students how to convince other to get what they want?

Why the hell would I vote for you?  You felt it was acceptable to re- posted on your personal Facebook from the Rotten Illinois Politicans page about "Jelly Butt Pritzker etc, etc, etc.". Even though I have never voted for a Republican in my life, I almost voted for you, because I thought you had some great ideas about how to make Elgin be successful. However, from what I observed you feel that insulting someones weight helps to prove your point about political issues. In my opinion, you need to work on having some better ideas to convince me to vote for you. Give me facts about your work, ways your going to bring jobs to Elgin, and make our downtown better, instead of criticizing someones weight...because you lost my vote with that irresponsible repost,  and I will work to let everyone I know not to vote for you either. Sorry not sorry, please be better.

I tell my students,if you are witnessing something that is not ok, you are just as guilty. If you do not speak up and say something, then you are guilty too. So when people ask my political opinion, I say that some people treat others in ways that I can not defend, and if I don't speak up an say something than I am just as guilty.  How can I preach one way to my students and own children, and then believe a different way in my leaders. Melania Trumps initiative is called #bebest. I will keep working on this initiative in my classroom to teach my students ab, out well-being and social media use and I hope that my friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, school districts, and elected officials will too. I will  be voting this year: I will vote for decency and kindness, no matter what your political party.

Do you know what Innovation is?

Maybe  I am naive, or hopeful, or maybe it's because I have entered down a dark rabbit hole and I am freckin' going back...

Have you seen the latest iPhone...I don't know what number they are on now, maybe like 13 or something, but point being that we don't have these anymore
... and thank god, because I don't think that brick does Snapchat...or even has the Dunkin Donuts app on it. Have you heard of Amazon? Did you know they are not popular for just books anymore? They have innovated their business to make it better for their customers....

See, companies have to make their products better, if they didn't then they would be out of business.  They are CONSTANTLY evolving, they have to. Why can't teachers evolve, why can't we ask our customers/students what they need and make it work for them? Why don't we ask our parents what they want to see from their child's classrooms? Students and parents are our customers, why don't we do what every business does and ask them. 56l

An Innovation Specialist is a teacher, that works within schools to  help teachers create lessons engaging, real world, hands on, "techie", collaborative, project based, community involved and FUN! When my 3rd grade students need to understand why we have to learn multiplication, we can create a  hands on project that requires them to create their dream house with game rooms and luxurious bedrooms with pools in them, and 5 car garages. We can then use the tiles on the floor to show square feet and discuss how they can use that measurement to map out their 40 x 200 foot bathroom. Then we have them use centimeter grid paper to shrink down their mansion to fit onto a poster paper. We then have them decorate their house with expensive furniture that they researched on the internet with only a budget of $10000. After that they might understand the purpose of multiplication

If they are hesitant to learn their multiplication tables,we can create a land of wizards, that earn shields, satchels, wands, wizard hats, crowns, and wings for every multiplication table they conquer. With this simple change, we can get even the most reluctant math students to be begging to be  We can teach elections not by reading about them in the newspaper, but by creating a real life caucus. We can fund raise for our field trip by creating a business plan with advertising, and charts, and calculations to show them how math and speaking and listening and writing are all connected.  The problem with all of these projects is that there is just not enough time between the follow up phone calls to parents, the chat in the hallway with lunch monitors, planning supply list for next year, the interventions, the grading giving of test, the grading of test, the recess duty, the PTO meetings, and on and on, and on.

This position that was almost, is my DREAM job, it's what I know that I am made for. Last spring and summer, I was fortunate to teach a class called Innovation Inside the Box, which district teachers took to be able to learn about ways that they could be innovative in their classroom lessons. It was so amazing to see that teachers sometimes just didn't know where to start, they were afraid that they couldn't align the standards to these projects, and that they had to read their lessons out of the manual. It was incredible to see their projects that they created to make their classrooms interactive and exciting not just for their students but for them too. I wish that I could have been with them to help and adjust and give feedback right there while they were teaching, that is what an innovation specialist can do.

I know what you are thinking, this does not sound like what would happen in a school, but maybe what would happen in a business when a consult comes in to spark some ideas and give feedback, you are absolutely correct and why not?  Teachers need to learn, and collaborate, and reach out, and create too; just like a business does.

A perfect classroom to me, is a classroom where students are working in groups, making...something, maybe it is a poster, a cardboard marble run, a map of their new land, an online game they created,  a math project that uses real world problems, interacting and collaborating with students across town on a project via their laptops, graphs with data they collected for their writing pieces, etc, etc, etc, and of course there is more that I don't even know about YET!

The problem with this new position is that our Learning Resource Directors positions were in jeopardy. Now, before we get on a debate about libraries/librarians being obsolete, I have to say that I am not NOT anti-library or anti-librarian. If you have ever read the brochure, or walked into the most beautiful library in the world, Gail Borden in Elgin, you will see that this is not a place to be quite and read books. Those librarians have created a magical world of everything that the families of Elgin could ever dream of. There are games, their are robots, their are computers, their are STEAM activities, their is crafts, a creativity lab, their is a 3D printer, their are movies, there are diversity seminars...this library has evolved, just like that iPhone 19. We need to be better and although our new district plan is start, it is still missing that teacher collaboration piece that elementary school teachers need.

A perfect classroom to me, is a classroom where students are working in groups, making...something... maybe it is a poster, a cardboard marble run, a map of their new land, an online game they created, a math project that uses real world problems, interacting and collaborating with students across town on a project via their laptops, graphs with data they collected for their writing pieces, etc, etc, etc, and of course there is more that I don't even know about YET!

Even if I were not to get my dream job, I NEED this position in my building. I need some someone to bounce ideas off of, someone to throw the Hail Mary to and then get feedback from, someone that has some time beyond emailing parents about missing lunches, to create "stuff" and would also have the time to align my crazy ideas to a standard or more, and be able to justify the lessons with test data. Teachers are busy, and we all want to do better, but especially in the elementary school there is just not enough time.